Prayer closets have a long history in Christianity. Taking a cue from Matthew 6:6, in which Jesus implores his followers to enter their closets for a quiet place to pray, Christians through the centuries have claimed literal and metaphorical "prayer closets" for that purpose. Theologians in the seventeenth century encouraged their use, and laywomen in the eighteenth wrote about them. More recently, Christian universities have included quiet spaces to pray in their dormitory designs; for example, incorporating such a room on each floor of a building. It is the prayer closet's most recent iteration that I will be exploring here: inspired by the 2015 Christian film War Room, evangelical women are converting closets in their homes into literal personal prayer closets, decorating them with tips from Pinterest and incorporating them into their practice of Christian femininity. In doing so, they go into theological battle as "prayer warriors" within their closets while maintaining more niceness-oriented characteristics of evangelical femininity outside of them.
In War Room, the protagonist, Elizabeth, is living in a verbally abusive relationship and working as a real estate agent to sell the home of Miss Clara, an elderly woman who introduces her to the titular war room: a closet in her home that she uses to "fight the enemy" with prayer. Elizabeth takes on the practice and through prayer brings about her husband's conversion, upon which he ceases his abuse. A pastor buys Miss Clara's house after realizing that the closet had been used as a prayer space. The movie was a huge hit, making $74 million against a $3 million budget and reaching number one at the box office in its second week. Its influence continues to be felt in its portrayal of prayer closets as dedicated places in the home--a room of one's own--for women to work change through prayer. Guides abound for how to create and decorate a prayer closet, and in evangelical circles it increasingly feels like a given that women have or aspire to have one.
One influencer's demonstration of her prayer closet provides a good example of how they have become incorporated into ideal evangelical femininity. Depending on the size of a home, a prayer closet may be a fully repurposed closet or it may be a clothing closet that is simply also used as a retreat space, which is what it seen in a video by Ashley Hetherington on “how to become THAT Christian girl,” part of a series that regularly reaches the hundreds of thousands. The introductory video makes note of the proliferation of “that girl,” morning routine, and get-ready-with-me videos across YouTube and TikTok. This genre follows young, attractive, mostly white girls and women as they serenely portray the alleged routines of their daily lives. Often categorized as wellness content, these videos frequently portray their creators doing such activities as waking up early, working out, journaling, doing a skincare routine, and eating healthy food, all with nods to the products they are using and wearing and backed by a calming instrumental soundtrack.
In that introductory video, Hetherington establishes where her content falls in this universe, saying that “that girl” is “the girl who wakes up early, exercises daily, and drinks her green juice. But is that girl…biblical?” As it turns out, she pretty much is as long as she adds Bible study and prayer to her routine. Things “that Christian girl" does include standard genre tropes like getting up early, drinking lemon water, working out, eating a kale-and-sweet-potato bowl, and journaling. But each activity is here introduced by a Bible verse—several of them from Proverbs 31—and given a Christian character. So “that Christian girl” works out in order to glorify the God who created her body; what might be characterized elsewhere as a hot-girl walk is here a “gratitude prayer walk”; and journaling happens in a purpose-made-and-marketed prayer journal with Bible verses on every page. Activities are also added, like reading the Bible first thing in the morning and then praying in a closet featuring a bulletin board covered in notes about whom or what she is praying for. (Hetherington shows herself closing the door on her dog, who waits patiently outside the closet for her to finish.) “This part is not what you see in the normal ‘That Girl’ videos," Hetherington tells the camera. "You don’t see girls reading their Bibles. You just don’t. You don’t see them in their prayer closets. You just don’t!” Hetherington never actually explains what a prayer closet is; she just assumes that her audience is already familiar with the concept.
This paper uses videos such as Hetherington's, as well as Pinterest boards and how-to blog posts, to explore the intersection of space, gender, and evangelical religious practice. It argues that the current version of the prayer closet works as both an external demonstration of the user's piety and a way to claim religious power and authority in a community where women are expected to be, kind, nice, and prioritizing of others, if not explicitly submissive. Within her meticulously decorated prayer closet, a woman can wage war on forces of evil, whether they be Satanic influence or merely an upcoming midterm exam. Further, by waging this war in the privacy of her own home, a prayer closet user can claim the heroic violence of the title "prayer warrior" while maintaining the niceness that is appropriate to evangelical femininity everywhere outside of the prayer closet.
This paper uses influencer videos, Pinterest boards, and how-to blog posts to explore the intersection of space, gender, and evangelical religious practice in the space of the "prayer closet." It argues that the modern iteration of the prayer closet works as both an external demonstration of the user's piety and a way to claim religious power and authority in a community where women are expected to be, kind, nice, and prioritizing of others, if not explicitly submissive. Within her meticulously decorated prayer closet, a woman can wage war on forces of evil, whether they be Satanic influence or merely an upcoming midterm exam. Further, by waging this war in the privacy of her own home, a prayer closet user is able to claim the heroic violence of the title "prayer warrior" while maintaining the niceness that is appropriate to evangelical femininity everywhere outside of the prayer closet.